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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25449985">Family/Childhood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledSaint/pseuds/FreckledSaint'>FreckledSaint</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Personal Hans Week [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Frozen (Disney Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childhood, F/M, Family, Gen, Humor, My own lore, Slice of Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:54:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,958</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25449985</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledSaint/pseuds/FreckledSaint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For as far back as he could remember, he always had someone tell him a story and kiss him good night. Although none could compete with Uncle Ivar his parents and brothers were excellent storytellers in their own right. Father read him the Bible, Mother sang songs about their ancestors, and his brothers just told him about their lessons.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hans &amp; Hans's Brothers (Disney), King of the Southern Isles/Queen of the Southern Isles (Disney)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Personal Hans Week [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838899</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Family/Childhood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I share the name of two great warriors,” said Uncle Ivar as he rocked his nephew to sleep. “There was Ivar the Boneless, and after him Ivar Stormbreaker. Oh! Did I ever tell you the story of how Stormbreaker took a mermaid for a wife?”</p><p>Hans nodded sleepily and wrapped his arms round his uncle’s neck, eager to hear another story. He liked stories and his uncle told them well. It was through him that he heard of glorious heroes sailing the whale road, princesses spinning silver on magical wheels, kings reigning in the skies, and queens ruling over golden cities.</p><p>For as far back as he could remember, he always had someone tell him a story and kiss him good night. Although none could compete with Uncle Ivar his parents and brothers were excellent storytellers in their own right. Father read him the Bible, Mother sang songs about their ancestors, and his brothers just told him about their lessons. The last were not as fun as stories about kings, but it was better than absolute silence.</p><p>Silence, as he saw it, was the worst possible thing to accompany someone to sleep. The mind wandered – often where it had no business wandering.</p><p>But at least the quiet was less crazed than his brother.</p><p>“Listen to the winds!” whispered Maron, his face glowing in the candlelight. “Hear how it howls and wails! And the moon is gleaming like a watchful eye, don’t you think? They say Lord Raginmund comes out on nights like these; he wades through the crashing seas and screams for his lost bride.”</p><p>Hans hated the story of Lord Raginmund and Lady Sigrid. When their uncle told it to them, he thought the punishment was terribly unfair and hoped for a happy ending (though he knew there was none waiting). His brother, meanwhile, believed it to be a fantastic tale and laughed at him for being scared.</p><p>“M’lord is searching on the wrong island,” he laughed with an open smile. “Everyone knows that the trickster Loke hid the lady on the Isle of Vorsø. There she was placed a thousand years ago, and there she will stay for a thousand more – weeping until Ragnarok.”</p><p>Hans clutched his plush horse so tightly that his knuckles were lily-white and his heart thumped against his chest like a bird trapped in a cage. He wiped the glint of moisture around his eyes with the sleeve of his white nightshirt. “It is not fair! What right did the gods have to turn her into stone? Uncle Ivar said she never wept in life but how is he so sure? Maybe she did mourn her family and the gods never noticed. And her husband! What did Lord Raginmund do to deserve his punishment? The gods were cruel when they should have been merciful.”</p><p>“The gods have no mercy,” said his brother matter-of-factly as he snuffed out the candle. “That’s why they are gods in the first place. Do you know how the world began according to our pagan forefathers?”</p><p>“Ymir,” said Hans; he had heard this story, too.</p><p>“Ymir,” repeated Maron with a nod of the head. “The gods created the earth from his flesh after slaughtering him in his sleep, which was terribly unfair towards Ymir. Further south you have the classical world and they were cruel. The Greek pantheon, for instance, was ruthless: Sisyphus is rolling that boulder of his somewhere because the gods willed it; Hera hated Heracles so much she struck him with madness, tricking him into kinslaying.”</p><p>“Was Heracles not born on the wrong side of the bedsheet?”</p><p>“He was. Though that hardly justifies the death of his lady wife and children.” Maron stretched his arms and fell onto the pile of pillows, yawning. “Want to know my opinion on this?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Maron ignored him. “Hera must have thought that death – quick or slow – was too charitable of a punishment for her husband’s bastard. She wanted Heracles to <em>really</em> suffer. Just think about our own father: he would undoubtedly prefer death to waking with our and Mama’s blood on his hands.”</p><p>A flash of lightning lit up the room for a second, followed by a crack of thunder and the wind beating at the windows as if a giant wished to break in and eat them. Brave little Hans dove deeper into the blankets while Maron, who at twelve did not fear storms as fiercely as his seven-year-old brother, drew back the bed curtains and inspected the room.</p><p>“The windows are fine,” he said eventually. Turning around and, upon seeing his little brother’s face, Maron laughed and petted his head. “The storm cannot reach us.”</p><p>Hans’ fingers tightened around the legs of his toys and he somehow buried himself even deeper into the many blankets and pillow when another flash of silver light flooded the room. His brother calmly settled next to him and pulled him into a tight hug.</p><p>Maron had been displaced from his room – something the maids called a ‘vermin situation’ worried Mama so much that she had Maron’s mattress burned and ordered for his room to be disinfected – and he had been sleeping with Hans for the past week. The little boy did not mind at all; he was used to sleeping with his regiment of toys or his older brothers. Sometimes he slept with both.</p><p>They lay in bed quietly and Hans, after ten minute or so, poked his head out of the many layers of blankets and asked, “But God – our God – is not cruel, yes? Papa says he is merciful; and loving.”</p><p>Maron just chuckled.</p><p>Hans frowned. “Answer me.”</p><p>“It is too late to talk about heavenly affairs, Hans.” Maron yawned again. “You are very lucky that your religious education so far is just Papa reading you the Bible. Theology class is such a bore. I do not even understand why you and I have to learn it. I’m twelfth-born and you’re the thirteenth, there is no way we will ever be Fidei Defensor. Now be quiet and go to slee—”</p><p><em>WoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOO</em> screeched the wind, bursting through the room and Hans felt the hairs on his arms prick up in alarm. The bed curtains flapped like the flags of a ship and he instinctually brought his knees up to his chest, curling up as if he was not a boy but a frightened kitten.</p><p>Maron had jumped out of the bed and rushed to close the window. Then he pushed it with both arms, cutting the stream of stormy air in its tracks. “You can come out of your blankets now. It won’t open again; I am sure of it.” </p><p>The little boy poked his face from behind the curtains. “How are you so sure that it’s just the wind? What if it’s Lord Raginmund?”</p><p>A strange grin appeared on Maron’s face. Those smiles of his, when his mouth curved wide and his sharp teeth revealed themselves, never promised anything good and it was made scarier by the moon bathing half his face in light. “If it is Lord Raginmund’s restless soul howling and not the northern winds, I bet he has come to steal you away!” he yelled and jumped onto Hans, hugging him with his entire body.</p><p>Screaming, Hans earned himself a pillow on his face and Maron laughed heartily. He kissed his brother on the brow and bounced back onto his pillows, nearly ripping the bed curtains off as he closed them. “Alright. Go to bed or else.”</p><p>“Or else what?”</p><p>“Or else,” Maron wrapped his arm around Hans, sighing. “Or else I shall chain you to a rock and Lord Raginmund will take you far, far away.”</p><p>***</p><p>Hans could not sleep.</p><p>He could not even close his eyes for longer than a minute, afraid as he was of every strange noise that forced him to hug his brother dangerously tightly.</p><p>Eventually, not being able to stare at his brother’s stupid sleeping face and the spit dribbling from the corner of his open mouth, Hans wiggled out of the embrace and climbed out of bed. He ran across the room to grab his pendant – Papa said that the cross would protect him from ghosts and ghouls – and dared to look out the windows.</p><p>Heavy clouds roiled above an angry black sea; white foam bubbled at the shore like frothy milk; flashes of lightning lit the world for a few moments each time. Hans searched the horizon for Lord Raginmund and although Maron and Uncle Ivar’s description of him clashed, he had a general idea of what he might look like: a bearded man dressed like Hans’ doll of Brynjarr Battleborn.</p><p>Thunder boomed from somewhere across the sea, and the little prince wondered if it was perhaps his God that caused it or if it was the old gods’ doing. In a low voice, Hans sang a little chanting song about a blacksmith’s treasures that his late grandmother used to sing to him and rested his chin atop his plushie. His eyes darted from the gloomy sky to the equally gloomy clock on the wall, which proclaimed that it was half past two.</p><p>Since Maron, who snored and drooled like an old man, was useless at this point, the little boy chose not to return to bed. He left the room in search of cozier, stronger arms. <em>Maybe Mama or Papa are awake,</em> thought Hans to himself as he walked down the dark corridors. <em>Mama will stroke my hair and Papa will give me warm milk sweetened with honey. </em></p><p>The door to his parents’ bedchamber was easily recognizable by the happy carvings of flowers and birds on its face. He wrapped his fingers around the brass handle and pulled it down. The door was locked. He pulled it down again and again, then he dropped to his knees and placed his ear by the gap beneath the door.</p><p>Hans listened and listened – the raindrops battering at the windows made eavesdropping difficult – and heard the most curious noises: heavy panting, the rustling of bedsheets, his parents’ whispering and giggling, and the steady beating of… something.</p><p>He lifted his head from the floor and stared at the carven orange blossoms, sullen. Whatever his parents were doing (<em>Why are they painting silk so late?</em> thought the boy), they were too busy to respond to his knocking on the door.</p><p>Before he could try pulling the handle again, raucous laughter drifted up the hall. Hans clasped the cross in his hand and pressed himself squarely against the walls when another round of laughter rang like a bell-stick in a toddler’s grasp. He blinked. The laugh was too merry, too lively, to belong to any goblin. It was familiar, too.</p><p>The boy ran as fast as his feet could carry him. On he went down the hall and past the portraits of his grandparents, down the stairs and the carven creatures on the rails, and he nearly tripped over the hem of his nightshirt. With arms tight around his toy, he slowly approached the door to drawing room from where the laughter boomed and roared.</p><p>The door was open by just a crack, and inside the chamber were Klaus, Jules, and Josef. There was a copper serving tray on the low table in the middle of the room littered with half-eaten cakes and tea cups, and there was frosting smeared all over Jules’ mouth. Klaus sat next to him, giggling as he bit into a carrot cake.</p><p>Josef, who stood behind them and the sofa, snorted. “See, this is what happens when you spout such nonsense!”</p><p>“What happens?” cried Jules, licking the frosting off his lips. “That you slap the back of my head while I innocently try to eat cake? Shameless, shameless Josef! And here I thought we would have the unbreakable bond of twins; we shared a womb!”</p><p>“I also shared the womb with Klaus and our ten other brothers.”</p><p>“Oh, you dumbass,” murmured Jules. “Yeah, technically we all occupied the same womb in the same woman – God bless our Mother – but we were in it <em>together</em> for nine months!” He wrested a napkin from his twin’s grasp. “Klaus moved out of there like a year before our conception and the others came later, idiot.”</p><p>“Is it really appropriate to speak of the queen as if she’s some hall that we each rented for nine months at a time?” asked Klaus while pouring tea into a porcelain cup. “I suppose Hans – if we must use the term – ‘rented’ it for eight months. Was he not born three-four weeks early?”</p><p>“He was born early enough to worry everyone out of their sleep,” answered Jules. His face was cleaned of frosting and he sighed, sipping on tea. His eyes darted from the grandfather clock to the door, from the door to Hans (who stood in the shadows), and from Hans to the cup in hands before returning back to him. “What are you doing there?”</p><p>Hans tilted his head by a fraction and he stepped into the room. The light of the candles hurt his eyes and he flinched and covered them. He yelped when strong arms appeared underneath his arms, lifting him up and pressing him close to a warm chest.</p><p>“Why are you not asleep?” Klaus stroked his masses of red hair and kissed his cheek. “Did Maron accidentally kick you of the bed?”</p><p>“No,” said Hans, resting his head on the crook of his eldest brother’s neck. “Maron told me the story of Lord Raginmund and his wife.”</p><p>Klaus stiffened. Josef’s jaw clenched the way it always did when he was angry. And Jules? He placed a hand behind his head and laughed.</p><p>“Did he now?” Jules stretched his arms.</p><p>“He did! And he said that Lord Raginmund will take me away.”</p><p>Josef looked ready to leave the room and shake Maron awake just to smack him, but Klaus interfered by saying, “Maron likes a good scary story. Lord Raginmund and Lady Sigrid existed – they’re recorded in the chronicles – but they are dead, and their souls at peace.”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“There are no grieving spirits of ancient men who will steal you or any of us, Hansi,” said Klaus firmly. He glanced at Josef, and he nodded in agreement.</p><p>By now Hans felt much better and the spooky figures that he saw in his mind’s eye began to fade. His eldest brother was steady, trustworthy, and did not lie. If it had been someone like Albert or Emil then Hans would not have trusted a single word. It wasn’t them though, and he sighed in relief and smiled at his brother.</p><p>Klaus smiled back and kissed the crown of his head.</p><p>“Why did you not go to Mother and Father?” asked Josef, catching the attention of everyone. He wore a serious expression and his eyes had a sharp edge to them. “Were they not in their bedchamber?”</p><p>Hans opened his mouth to reply, but he quickly lost his confidence. “They were…I think- the door was locked. I pressed my ear to it and heard silk rustle and crinkle. Mama and Papa were whispering something funny to each other because they were laughing. I think they were painting silk, or fans. Maybe tables; they were breathing hard.” He turned away from his third brother. “I don’t know. The door was locked.”</p><p>Jules found a mischievous smirk and slapped it on. “Were they now? Would you like to know what I think they were doing, Hänschen?”</p><p>“I do!” chirped the boy.</p><p>“Do you really want to have this conversation?” inquired Josef drily as Klaus pressed a hand over his brother’s ears, to which the child did not take kindly. “Do you honestly want to tackle this delicate subject at quarter to two in the morning? With a seven-year-old?”</p><p>While Hans squirmed in his eldest brother’s arms, Jules wilted like a sad sunflower under the stern gaze of his twin. Josef turned towards Klaus and nodded towards the door. “You two should go sleep. We will clean up this mess; no need to burden the maids unnecessarily.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Klaus smiled. “Don’t stay up too late. Father means to drag us to the chapel tomorrow and the divine service waits for no one.”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” said Josef with a gesture of adieu.</p><p>***</p><p>The thunder still cracked like a whip, but Hans was not afraid. Not when Klaus bundled him in several blankets, sung him a lullaby about a secret garden, and kissed him and his plush horse good night.</p><p>He watched the moon; it was yellow that night. The rain was a sheet of water sliding down the glass; dark clouds swirled in the sky. Despite all that, the moon shone just as brightly as a golden lantern. Hans imagined it to be the eye of a great big cat – like the one that lived in the library.<em> This one lives in the sky though,</em> fantasized the boy.<em> It lives in the sky and it guards the city from trolls. Cats bring good luck and Morfar said that black cats are the luckiest. </em>He smiled. <em>The cat in the sky brings good luck to the city.</em></p><p>The boy imagined how big a sky cat would be and giggled. <em>It shall want lots of catmint and toys. And will hate leaving its castle in the clouds because it does not want to wet its paws in the sea.</em></p><p>Hans watched the yellow moon for as long as he could, but, as always, sleep won him over and his eyes slowly closed. That night, the little prince dreamt of castles in the clouds, of secret gardens bursting with life, of painted silks and birds and a giant fluffy cat meowing in the night sky.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>World-building? In my one shots? It’s more likely than you think</p></blockquote></div></div>
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